The Iran watchers

Making a dramatic visit to Tehran days before the July 7 deadline for a nuclear deal, the head of an international atomic watchdog agency has emerged as a central figure in the effort to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb — even as Republicans and other skeptics worry that a nuclear deal will require a dangerous reliance on his agency.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will meet with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani on Thursday to discuss details of Iran’s compliance with his agency’s inspections — a crucial element of proving that Iran is abiding by any nuclear deal.

While ostensibly a neutral arbiter, the Japanese-born Amano has been a de facto U.S. ally, meeting with senior officials like Secretary of State John Kerry and national security advisor Susan Rice as the talks have unfolded, and basing his agency’s stance toward Iran on Western intelligence assessing that Iran has sought a nuclear weapon bomb.

But skeptics of the talks are queasy about how much the emerging deal rides on a United Nations body whose leadership could change in 2017 — and whose previous director general disputed claims that Iran was pursuing a bomb.

“This deal is a massive bet on the IAEA,” says Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “What if, at the end of the day, the IAEA is not capable of operating at this gold standard that everyone expects? How long is Amano going to be around?”

Iranian officials, meanwhile, view Amano’s agency with deep mistrust. They say the agency is riddled with western spies, and that its past interviews with Iranian nuclear scientists has helped to target them for assassination. “Without a doubt some of the inspectors in the [IAEA] are spies,” Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign policy advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, said last month.

Even so, Rouhani will receive Amano in Tehran, a meeting sure to cover the nature of the IAEA’s future access to sites where Iran may be suspected of conducting illicit nuclear activity. The IAEA has also been seeking answers from Iran about whether it has conducted past military research into developing a nuclear bomb, something Tehran vehemently denies.

A senior administration official speaking in Vienna underscored the nuclear watchdog’s central role, saying it would be have “major responsibility for the verification of many of the details of this agreement.”

Conveniently, the IAEA is headquartered in Vienna, just across the Danube River from the Palais Coburg hotel, where the nuclear talks are being held. Amano, 68, has made several appearances at the Palais Coburg in recent days and has been read into many details of the negotiations.

But the U.S. is cognizant of Iranian concerns about the IAEA. “[W]e are careful about the independence of the IAEA and their autonomy, and they’re working together with us but not for us and make their own decisions,” the official said.

A comprehensive nuclear deal will assign the IAEA crucial responsibilities, including keeping watch over Iran’s declared nuclear sites — such as its centrifuge facilities at Natanz and Fordow, as well as R&D facilities and uranium mines — and investigating other sites where Iran may be suspected of nuclear work that violates the deal. IAEA inspectors will be empowered to make short-notice visits to those sites, where they can make visual inspections as well as collect soil and radiation samples that could offer telltale clues to furtive Iranian activities.

But some on Capitol Hill fret that the agency might not be up to the job. “While many in Congress favorably view the IAEA, they worry that the IAEA may not have all the funding or authorities that it needs to carry out its job in Iran,” said one senior Congressional GOP staffer.

Several experts discount that concern. “I’m confident the IAEA will have sufficient staff, budget, and equipment to monitor the deal if they get the necessary legal authorities for access to sites, information and people,” said Gary Samore, a former nonproliferation official in the Obama White House. The IAEA had a 2014 budget of $377 million.

But Samore added that the IAEA is much better at verifying compliance at nuclear facilities that are already known to the outside world. The agency’s track record in spotting secret facilities — in North Korea and Syria, for instance — is weaker. Samore said the agency would need to rely on intelligence from western states.

That underscores the little discussed role of western intelligence agencies in the enforcement of any detail, a theme administration officials have privately emphasized to members of Congress.

A nuclear deal is expected to restrict Iran’s nuclear activities for at least a decade, and longer in some specific categories. While the U.S. has been happy with Amano’s stewardship, it is not a given that future presidents will be so positive about the agency. Amano’s current term, his second, expires in late 2017, and although IAEA chiefs are not term-limited he could be replaced.

The U.S. was unhappy with Amano’s predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian who said in 2009 he had seen “no credible evidence” that Iran was interested in a nuclear weapon even after western intelligence suggested otherwise and initially opposed U.N. sanctions Tehran.

Obama officials welcomed Amano’s replacement of ElBaradei in late 2009. A diplomatic cable that summer from the U.S. mission in Vienna described Amano as “in agreement with us” and “solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.”

Dubowitz said he worries that the nuclear deal relies too heavily on the opinion of an agency that itself is subject to change.

“One can imagine that post-Amano it’s a return to ElBaradei — or worse,” he said. “The IAEA will always be susceptible to political agendas and politicization.”